1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to text processing and editing systems and more particularly to apparatus for sensing non-coded information such as diagrams and graphs contained in the text being processed.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In office systems having text processing capability wherein the text material being developed or edited is first shown on an editing display on which it is corrected and finalized before the system reduces material to hard copy, there is a need for simple and efficient expedient for introducing non-coded information such as graphs and diagrams into the display and for storing such graphic material so that it is available for introduction into the final hard copy.
Presently available apparatus for sensing such non-coded graphic data is slow, mechanically complex and expensive. It usually involves a linear array of hundreds of light sensitive members and means of scanning the graphic material line by line in a raster fashion by a scanning lens which focuses the image onto the linear array. It further requires extensive memory storage and accessing capacity for handling the sensed graphic material. Alternatively, the document may be loaded onto a cylindrical drum which rotates while a single photodetector travels parallel to the axis of rotation. In this manner the detector traces a helix on the drum and a raster scan on the document. While such standard apparatus may be adequate when sensing entire pages made up only of non-coded graphic data such as images, it has often been found to be too large, cumbersome and costly for applications wherein non-coded graphic information only occupies a portion of a page or document which shares with standard coded alphanumeric text material.
While hand-held scanners have been used for the scanning and sensing of simple coded information, so far as can be determined, they have not been used for the sensing of non-coded information in any form. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,947,817 and 3,976,973 relate to character recognition systems wherein coded information is read by the hand-held scanner, and the characters represented by such code may be subsequently generated. The hand-held scanners in these patents contain means for sensing deviations in linear direction of the scanner movement. However, they contain no means for velocity determination.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,963,901 also involves a hand-held scanner having means for sensing deviation from linear scan paths. It too is concerned only with the sensing of coded information and in no way contains means for making velocity determination.
It appears that one of the primary reasons that hand-held scanners have not been used in the past to scan non-coded information is that they are inherently incapable of any regular motion. In the sensing and reproduction of non-coded, i.e., graphic information, if there is no regular motion, there is no way of spatially orienting non-coded information sensed by a hand-held scanner.